Pinoy billionaire circle grows this year

AFP News - Filipino tycoon Lucio Tan, pictured the 10th World Chinese Entrepreneurs Convention (WCEC) in Manila, in 2009. Tan has won a decades-long legal battle to keep the fortune he built up during the dictatorship …more of Ferdinand Marcos, according to his lawyer less

Mall tycoon Henry Sy remained the top billionaire in the Philippines, as the number of Pinoy billionaires grew to 11 this year, Forbes magazine's latest list released late Monday showed.

Sy, whose SM chain of malls nationwide and several other investments gave him a net worth of $13.2 billion (P538.6 billion), led the Pinoy billionaires. He ranked 68th in the global list, up from being 116th in 2012.

The local billionaire circle, which had a combined wealth of $37.85 billion (P1.54 trillion), has grown from only six in 2012.

Forbes, which has been listing the world's billionaires since 1987, noted that this year's 1,426 billionaires collectively control $5.4 trillion of the world's wealth. This is higher than the $4.6 trillion shared by 1,226 people last year.